Ready For Retirement
Ready For Retirement
How to Thrive in Retirement by Embracing the Unknown
Chris has been retired for a little over a year while his wife has continued to work. Now that Chris has “tried on” retirement and found the fit good, his wife will likely join him within the year. In his conversation with James, Chris, who could be described as goal-oriented and one who likes to be prepared, talks about the pros and cons of retirement. He’s found that by staying flexible, maintaining an adventuresome spirit, and focusing on giving back, retirement can be quite fulfilling. And he’s paved the way for his wife to retire with confidence.
Questions answered:
What sort of conversations could spouses be having before and during retirement about goals and expectations?
How will relationships with colleagues shift and change in retirement?
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Timestamps:
0:00 - Meet Chris
3:50 - Impressions regarding retirement
6:17 - Preparatory conversations
9:09 - Decompressing and adjusting
12:24 - Purpose and mystery
15:59 - Exploring and serving
21:19 - Missing colleagues
25:57 - One spouse retiring first
29:41 - What’s next and final advice
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My guest on today's episode of Ready for Retirement is Chris. Listen in as Chris shares about the fact that, even though he's very goals-focused, it was the mystery of retirement and the ability to embrace that mystery that has been the most fun and led to the most fulfillment. Chris shares about how, after working 30 plus years for the same company, what it was like to leave the friends and people he worked with behind after retiring and stay tuned till the end. Where Chris talks about the fact that he retiring before his wife was actually profoundly helpful, as it allowed her to see what it was like to retire, learn what worked and what didn't and ultimately make the decision to retire herself. It's all coming up next on today's episode of Ready for Retirement.
Speaker 1:This is another episode of Ready for Retirement. I'm your host, James Canole, and I'm here to teach you how to get the most out of life with your money. And now on to the episode. Here today I have Chris. Chris, thank you for joining me on the Ready for Retirement podcast. Thank you, James. I'm happy to be here. I'm happy you're here because it sounds like you've had a very happy start to your retirement, and so I think there's a lot we can learn from that, and so thank you for coming and sharing some of the wisdom that I know you're going to impart to us.
Speaker 2:Well, I hope I can share some tidbits that'll help some folks and learn a lot along the way for myself as well.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you can, and if we don't mind, chris, let's back up a little bit. So you've been retired just over a year now. What did you do for work prior to retiring?
Speaker 2:So I worked for a local utility. It's a rather large utility, a national utility, but I worked for a local utility for about 31 years, and just prior to that I worked for a rather large bank, but that was while I was still in college and as an intern, and then worked there for a few years, but the lion's share, the vast majority of my career, has been a pretty steady one with the local utility 31 years, wow.
Speaker 1:And how old were you when you retired?
Speaker 2:I was 57 and I'm 58 now.
Speaker 1:So you were with that utility from your mid-20s before retirement?
Speaker 2:Yes, it's even hard to think about that. It's a lifetime.
Speaker 1:It's kind of crazy that I was that young when I started, I got to imagine it's a little surreal thinking about your first day at the utility and then your last day at the utility and thinking about a life that happened in between. When did you so? You were with utility for 30 plus years. When did retirement first start seriously becoming something you were thinking about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm going to sound like a major retirement nerd or maybe a personal finance nerd, but I honestly, my wife and I were thinking about retirement for a long time, even really when I first started my career. That was just one of the other key goals that we had. You know, raising two beautiful twin daughters that I have happened to have, and then you know, just just becoming debt free as soon as possible that all of those sorts of things kind of were intertwined with my wife and I. Some of our major goals, career goals and things like that that we wanted to achieve. But I would say more specifically, probably about 10 years shy of retirement is when I really kicked it into high gear. One of the other major milestones is turning 50 and being able to do catch-up contributions. That made it all the more real as well.
Speaker 1:So it'd be on your mind but seriously started thinking about it in the last on your mind but seriously started thinking about it in the last five, seven years prior to actually calling it a retirement or moving forward with the retirement. Now out of curiosity, Chris, what was your position at the utility? What type of work did you do?
Speaker 2:I managed a small team with a pretty large budget around energy efficiency so encouraging our customers to use energy more wisely, more energy efficiently and also around demand response so encouraging our customers to use energy more wisely, more energy efficiently, and also around demand response. So during periods of peak demand, I managed a team that was responsible for managing residential customers' peak demand on the system overall.
Speaker 1:Very good. A lot of years doing that, that's great. Now back to the retirement. Retirement sounds like it's always part of you may be a very goals-focused person or systems-driven person. It was always part of the thought process. What came to mind when you thought about retirement? What were the images that would be first and foremost in your brain as you were thinking even of the concept?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question. I think a lot of people would probably say vacationing and lying on the beach and whatnot. I always thought about just having more flexibility. Life flexibility and transitioning into different purposes for life is what I primarily thought about. That sort of maybe amorphous view of what retirement would look like for me and my wife is just maximum flexibility.
Speaker 1:Now I'm curious. You were thinking about retirement for a very long time, to use your words, which is a complete transition, a different purpose. That's a big thing. Were there fears or some unknowns that became, or felt a little daunting as you were planning for retirement, especially getting closer to the time of actually turning a notice to retire?
Speaker 2:Yes, of course. One of them certainly is do we have enough in our portfolio? Do we have financially enough to last us potentially 30 plus years? That was certainly daunting, Feeling bored.
Speaker 2:As you mentioned, you've already noticed that I am goals driven, so worrying about whether there would be a goal or not. What goal or goals could I achieve in retirement? During a career, of course, you have monthly performance appraisals and you have a career ascension. Hopefully, if that's what you choose to do, you know far more easily thought about in terms of linking into specific goals, but when you and your spouse are in complete and total control of all those goals, it can be rather daunting. So, yeah, there were definitely blind spots in there that I would offer up with anyone else. Talk to your significant other about this. My wife and I had tons of conversations, and even to this day we continue having conversations about what would retirement look like. What does it look like for the two of us, how would our lives change for the better and what challenges might come up that we would need to deal with.
Speaker 1:I'm curious about those conversations. Were there recurring themes, as you would express these? Maybe not fears, but potential issues or challenges with retirement. Was there a common theme to those conversations?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess sometimes they would come up based on, you know, her having a tough day at work or me having a tough day at work, or the pressure of work sometimes, you know, working for a utility. One of the things that most people don't realize is that everyone has a storm duty. So I had my regular day to day job, but I also had another responsibility. That was my storm duty role. So when a big, regular day-to-day job, but I also had another responsibility, that was my storm duty role. So when a big storm would roll in, be it a hurricane or a snowstorm or whatever, you would transition into that storm duty role if you were called, and those could be very stressful times.
Speaker 2:And so that would lead me into, with my wife, a conversation about well, won't it be great when we have, you know, when I'm retired, we won't have to worry about those kinds of stresses and she won't have to worry about her stresses or a major purchase upcoming a new roof on the house might lead into. Well, in retirement, how would we deal with this major purchase, which inevitably would happen in retirement as well, versus how do we do it now when we can basically utilize our emergency funds that we had that. We know we could pretty quickly replenish because we're working.
Speaker 1:Now there's sometimes that sense of the grass is always greener, and so, as you have these conversations with your wife of wouldn't it be great if we didn't have these pressures or these other things that we need to do I would love to know has retirement materialized in the way you were hoping it would, or has it been significantly different than what was anticipated?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know at this point again, you know, acknowledging for 14 months in but I do feel like I've tried on the coat and it fits quite well is that I had no idea the stress that I was under. I loved my job, I love the folks that I worked with and worked for, my leadership was spectacular and to this day and we can talk a little bit about my relationships with my past work colleagues post-retirement but anyway, to answer your question, I think it's materialized in a way where I do all the cooking and the cleaning and whatnot around the house. I run the household now in that regard, and there's no way worrying about unloading the dishwasher or doing clothes washing or whatever will ever come to managing a $50 million budget and doing multiple performance appraisals. It's just, you know, I can focus much more on the happier aspects of life and helping other people out, which I really, really enjoy doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a few things that you just said that I want to touch upon. The first is the sense of I had no idea how much stress I was feeling, or I had no idea the degree to the pressure that I was feeling. When did you first realize? Or, in a sense, step out of that pressure to be able to look back and say, wow, I had no idea.
Speaker 2:That's a great question and I still think about it. It still gives me great satisfaction and almost inspiration in retirement to think about what it was like before and I don't want to leave your listeners with, wow, this was such a stressful job and how did he last 31 years and whatnot. You know you just don't realize when you're in the role it's part of what you do is meeting these obligations and trying to meet or exceed goals and things like that, and you know they're inspirational in and of themselves. But probably two weeks in I realized, wow, I don't have this weekly meeting that I always had. I don't have this monthly meeting that I always had. That would give me some stress to make sure you know, do am I prepared for it? Anytime I would have executive leadership report outs. I would want to make sure I knew more than anyone else. That was just the way I would typically approach it and anticipate questions.
Speaker 2:And then the first storm. You know I mentioned a little bit about storm duty the absolute first storm. I would run into my wife and say, guess what Big storm. I hope everybody's OK and I hope everything works out for everyone. But don't worry, I'm not going to be called for this, so that won't completely disrupt our lives, for it's about 12 hours on and 12 hours off was the schedule with storm, so it was very disruptive, but obviously we did it because they're incredible dedicated employees at the utility but at the same time it was adding stress. So anytime there'd be a storm and even to this day I still comment I can't help but comment on yep, I won't have to worry about being called in for a storm.
Speaker 1:So it wasn't necessarily the case that you retire and day one of retirement you realize, wow, I was under a tremendous amount of stress, as much as when these things would arise. That would almost trigger that stress response of, oh, previously this would have been incredibly stressful. That's when you realized, yes, exactly, was there an adjustment period or was it literally day one of retirement? You felt like that was the greatest decision I could have made with work and I'm over the moon excited.
Speaker 2:I would say on the continuum, it was closer to the latter Over the moon. Excited, you know, I still I'm still inspired and eager and enthusiastic and thrilled, and I know that the best is yet to come. Still so, for the vast majority of my hours in any given day, it's fantastic. The vast majority of my hours in any given day, it's fantastic. And I still think, though you know what will I feel like in two years? What will I feel like in five years? You know what? What will my life situation be like, along with my spouse's situation and our daughters, inevitably, when they get married and, hopefully start having grandkids? What, what will all those kinds of life experiences have in store for us, and how will that be? But at this point, looking back 100% wouldn't change a thing about it.
Speaker 1:That's great. I want to touch on that purpose piece next. You raised a family, you saved up to retire, you put in 31 years at the utility, you made the decision and it's great to say, okay, now I can do the dishes, I can take care of the house, I can do these things. My guess is those aren't the same things that are fulfilling that life's purpose, though that you mentioned is important to you of being goal-driven, of being purpose-driven. What is Chris doing to find that next adventure and feel like there still is that purpose that you're pursuing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love to help young people. I love to help my friends and family, and help could mean a lot of different types of things. I'm blessed with knowing. My father was in the military for 30 plus years. He was an engineer and he imparted a lot of wisdom to me mechanical wisdom. He was very mechanical. I'm not necessarily mechanical, but I learned a lot. So that's just one example of the ways that I can help folks, and so that's that's certainly my current purpose.
Speaker 2:I have time that I can spend with young people, with my, my daughters. They're in their late 20s now and they have young male and female friends that I, if they ask for my, my wisdom, both my wife and I, we're all in. Of course, when they ask for it, we don't offer it without being asked, but that's a great purpose. I can spend more time at church, committing to church activities.
Speaker 2:I mentored a young man over the summer with personal finance and he happens to be homeschooled, so he came one day a week for about two months and, uh, we went through a whole process of personal finance. So there's, I just enjoyed that, um, there's, it's almost um. The mystery of it is is inspirational in and of itself is knowing that I can dabble in this and see how it goes. And there's nothing, you know, financially that's pushing me in one direction. There's nothing from any other stress, stressors or any other commitments. You know have a tremendous amount of flexibility. I joke that I never knew I'd be so good at taking friends and family to the airport. You know we've been about 17 minutes from the airport and so I'm happy to do that. That's just a small thing, but that's a way to help your community, help people around you.
Speaker 1:There's something you said that you mentioned as a mock-ended comment that I want to highlight, because I think it's important for people to realize which is the mystery of it. All is kind of the thing that's exciting, and I think that mindset is the key. There's so much research around growth. Mindset versus fixed mindset in the sense of retirement is new and retirement is something that in a sense you probably have to practice to get right to what's going to be that thing, and if you're just expecting for it to be laid out for you, it's going to be challenging. But if you have that mindset, there is a mystery. There are going to be things that work and don't work, and that can be fun. I think that's the mindset that I see that helps people really enjoy and thrive in retirement, versus wonder what on earth they're doing.
Speaker 2:Yep, 100%. It's exploring and having the flexibility to know, just like you did in your career. I had jobs in my 31 years at the utility that were more favorable to me and more enjoyable than others, but I didn't beat myself up about making a bad decision. I knew that there was always something that I could learn from that, and so the same in retirement. There's always something that you can learn, whether you had a stellar experience or a not so good experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, on that theme of exploring, it's only been 14 months, granted, but have there been things that you have explored that you said? You know, I thought that was going to be for me, but it wasn't or the alternative of. I had no idea this aspect was going to be so fulfilling to me fulfilling to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would probably say there was a particular committee that I was on not at risk of being overly specific, but there was a particular committee that I was on that I realized pretty early on that this just wasn't for me. I did, and this was just prior to retirement, actually as well, and so I didn't beat myself up. I still learned a great deal from that particular experience. But after two years of about a year prior to retirement and then about a year after retirement I recognized this probably wasn't for me. It wasn't maximizing, you know, my strengths, and so I needed to move on and and I found a replacement and I think she'll do better, way better than I could ever have thought about and added to that particular role.
Speaker 2:So that makes me feel good, though, too. That, even if you know and that's the other part of that too is I felt like it was a challenge to say, okay, how am I going to make this better? Even though I my contribution, I did my best, but it probably was not as good as someone else. Let me try to find somebody or transition somebody and do a really good job at transitioning that person in to do a better job. That's an example. I can't say that there are at this point any other major examples of things that have been a sort of a fit and a start at this point, but we'll see. So far, so good though.
Speaker 1:We will see. This is another thing that I want to highlight, because so many people say, yeah, in retirement, I do want to give back, I do want to be of service, and then they struggle and sometimes even flounder of well, what does that look like? Do I have to go become a teacher, do I have to go start a nonprofit? And it becomes so overwhelming that they just don't do anything, whereas in this conversation, it's okay, you're on a committee. It didn't work out. You found a replacement and you did something else. It wasn't for you, but you were able to help mentor younger people, you were able to get involved at church, you were able to help out your daughter's friends, and so I think it's that same sense of not being afraid to experiment with different things, some of which will work, some of which won't. But was it difficult for you to find ways to serve, or is that just in your nature to be constantly exploring and find those things?
Speaker 2:You know, I would say sort of humorously and respectfully, if anyone knows church folk, if you put yourself out there, they will find something for you. A church community is always looking for people and volunteers and that's a great thing. So that was not an issue to be able to find something. Or, and to this point as well, you know, I left on great terms. I'm still active in that church and other aspects. So I know that the phone's going to ring. You know I'm going to get a text at some point saying hey, how about this? Would you like to explore this for a little bit? Because we liked how you did this and this and this in that committee. So I know that's coming.
Speaker 2:But the key takeaway, the point there is give yourself latitude Now that you're retired. That's the flexibility you were looking for and that's the flexibility I found so appealing is to know I'm not perfect. There will be some things that I'm going to dabble in and try and do well and respectfully, and do it on a committed basis but at the same time recognize maybe this is not for me, but I might explore something, might find something that is just spectacular that I will do for the next five years. Who knows? It's just.
Speaker 2:One other point on that too is you know you spend your entire career doing, doing, doing, building experiences, and my wife and I talk about this now is that in my late 50s she just turned 60. You know we have some legitimate experiences to be able to, to help other folks with. You know that working for you know nearly 40 years, if you consider even time when you had high school jobs and things like that, that's a long time. To be able to have interactions with people and have successes and have failures and and to be able to, if asked, impart that kind of help and wisdom and perspective with with young people, I think is incredibly valuable, and it's something that I don't know. I can certainly look at some people that I interacted with growing up that were tremendously influential with me, and it was just a conversation, that's all it was, and I still look back on that, and so I really want to help, if I can help young people in the same regard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, another incredible thing to highlight is it doesn't have to be anything incredibly sophisticated or in depth. Sometimes a simple conversation, imparting 40 years of wisdom in one conversation, is all it takes to be that voice of reason or that mentor in some ways that people need. That's great. I want to go back to your workplace you mentioned you had great leadership. You had a great team. You really enjoyed the people that you worked with. What was it like having to leave those people? Yeah, not necessarily cut yourself off from them, but you're not going to see them 40 plus hours a week anymore. How did that go for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say that's probably one of the challenges and surprises is, upon further reflection, I miss the people that I work with. They were great people and I really, really enjoyed and I learned a ton from the young and the old and anywhere in between. And and I do miss that daily interaction with those people, but it was, it was always professional relationships. I wouldn't say that. You know, I had relationships with my work colleagues that were they were over for dinner every other night or anything like that. It was very focused on the professional aspects. But, um, you know, there, there it's very insightful to um to see, uh and have experiences with people in challenging situations and make great decisions and um follow their, their thought process and and learn from that.
Speaker 2:And I do miss that Um, and having uh, some authority and responsibility. Um, you know, and when you leave the company, all of that authority and responsibility goes away. Now they move on and you know that's my wife and I joke about this sometimes and we experienced it in our career where somebody you thought, wow, there's no way they could leave this company and not have it change dramatically. And I'm here to tell you, um, people find a way, you know, people rise up, um, they rise to the occasion, just like I did, um, and you know the the circle of life continues corporately and uh, so you have to be, you have to check your ego at the door when, with regard to that sort of transition and that has been a little bit of a challenge for me it's just missing those people.
Speaker 2:You know, when I text them, they don't respond to me immediately. There were there was a time, you know when, when people were reporting to me that they would respond immediately, even if it was something social or whatever that we would talk about, and that's okay. They're there, they've got their day, daily life and their work life, and that's okay. They've got their daily life and their work life, and that's okay. I know that eventually we'll get together again and have a drink or have dinner or whatever. That's all good. Just like I do the same with my old workmates that retired years ago, I still have a small group of folks that I get together with occasionally and we struggle, even now that we're all retired, we still struggle with trying to sort of find a date that we can get together and talk about old times and then learn what each other is doing and how the families have progressed and who's got grandkids, and things like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. Is there anything that? Because, when you leave those friendships, there's part of it that's a relational thing that you're leaving and there's part it that's a relational thing that you're leaving and there's part of it it's an identity thing that you're leaving of being a boss, being a manager, being someone that's well-respected within the company. Is there something that you did or wish you had done to replace that? Or is that just a natural thing that comes to its conclusion and it's time for something different?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've always been very flexible and I acknowledge other people might struggle with this, but I did not struggle with the transition of knowing all good things come to an end, all bad things come to an end, all things cycle through and my time. No one will ever take away from me, all those wonderful experiences, even though they have now ended. In that context of work for 31 years for a great company, no one will take those memories away. And when I know that I can get together with some of those folks and we'll throw some of those memories around and have a great time and relive them a bit and sort of regenerate that incredible mutual respect that we had for each other. But you know, to your listeners, everyone moves on. Everything must, all good things must come to an end.
Speaker 2:But I gain inspiration in reflecting back on those and saying did I do my best? Yes, did I learn a lot? Yes, did I make a few mistakes? Yes, but I still learned from those mistakes and I moved on and now I can transition into this new, what is essentially could be an entire new career in terms of years. You know, I could very well, if good Lord gives me, you know, a long retired life match my years in retirement that I had in my career. And so, wow, you know I'm new to the retirement world and I've got so much to learn.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. One thing, chris, you mentioned even before I went on here was your wife is still working, and you mentioned the incredible benefit it's been for one spouse to transition into retirement first. Can you elaborate more on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that just sort of worked out that way. I wouldn't say that as we were envisioning retirement years ago that we said, okay, one of us will stop working first and the other one, and that kind of thing. It just sort of as we were having conversations about career-wise and what our finances looked like and our goals and things like that, it worked out to be that I retired first but having me retire and I can't emphasize this enough for your listeners is having one spouse retire first, so I can try it on, so we can sort of adjust to the lifestyle we lived very modestly. So financially my wife we've been living on her salary, so our portfolio we haven't even had to touch because we saved so much of what we earned during our working lives and especially post girls being done college. So you know, financially it hasn't been an impact.
Speaker 2:And to be able to sort of like I said earlier, you know, try the coat on for size. And she gets to look at to sort of like I said earlier, try the coat on for size. And she gets to look at me and say what do you think I get to ask her what do you think? Am I adding value here? How is the transition going for you and me? How are you feeling? How am I feeling? How is this? And then now I'm having more conversations about coaxing her into retirement, and it'll be soon singer into retirement, and it'll be soon, probably within a year or less. But that has helped tremendously to just financially, try it on, emotionally, try it on, logistically, try it on. All those things have helped a lot.
Speaker 1:What's been the biggest lesson learned, or lesson reinforced, in the past 14 months, as you have retired, while she's continued and learned from each other's experiences.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow, you know there. There I would say there have been you know sort of a lot of lessons. But probably the biggest lesson learned is, you know, she would always say to me and you hear this in a lot of retirement counselors too is you know, don't retire from something, retire into something, retire to something, have that purpose. And I think both of us were comfortable enough with me saying you know, I don't have it, I don't have it all figured out. I'm going to go into this knowing there will be some pros and there will absolutely be some purposes that I want to get into.
Speaker 2:But we didn't have it all planned out precisely, sort of unlike you know, our finances and our goals and things like that. We had that very much planned out. But this idea of retirement, certainly there were, you know, some top things that we thought would benefit us as a couple and as our with our kids, that for me, moving into retirement. So I would say that was probably the biggest. One of the biggest lessons is you don't necessarily need a precise retire into kind of plan to not still be very successful If you give yourself flexibility, if you give yourself also a commitment to say I'm going to do this and I'm going to find things and add value to the household and value to my community, you know, and the precision of what are you going to do day in and day out doesn't necessarily have to be filled in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great advice. And, as you said, you may have just as long in retirement ahead of you as you had in your career behind you. You are very goal-focused, purpose-focused. You're very open to exploring and trying new things. What's next for you, chris, as you and your wife look at the next 30 plus years in retirement? What excites you most?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd say the mystery of it I touched. I touched on it a little bit before. The mystery, the excitement of not knowing precisely what's in store. Do I have some markers? Yeah, you know. Grandkids, certainly marriages for my daughters and then grandkids. Absolutely More travel. We were blessed enough to be able to travel internationally and nationally even prior to retirement, and so now we can focus on that. Certainly in the more near term, like I mentioned already, my wife's pending retirement no date yet, but certainly a conversation that's being had. But I guess I would leave with your listeners too is I'm open. Be open to what it is, what's around the corner.
Speaker 2:One quick example my father, I think I might've mentioned. He worked in the military for 30 years. He retired in his late forties. He enlisted in his late teens. He had a whole life. So I saw him have several careers in that time. I saw him struggle a little bit being able to go from military life to civilian life. I think I learned a lot from that experience, and I was in my late teens when he retired from the military. So what I learned from that was acknowledge I can have a whole, nother career if I choose. At this point I don't plan to work anymore other than volunteer work and that type of thing and other purposes for my friends and my family and my community. But who knows, that might be there as well. So that's some of the mystery and the unknowing that will come up no doubt in the next 30 plus years. But there are certainly some markers that I'll want to hit and think about and that I'm very, very enthusiastic about and looking forward to.
Speaker 1:Who knows, but embrace the mystery of retirement. I think that's a great thought process. Well, Chris, this has been really great. Is there any other final message or piece of advice you'd want to leave our listeners with before we wrap up today's episode?
Speaker 2:You know it's for me and I hope all your listeners have the same experience or maybe if they're in retirement now can sort of transition and start to think about how good it is. You have tremendous flexibility in front of you now and use it. Use that flexibility to help others look outwardly. You don't have to quite look as inwardly and self as much as you can be now looking outwardly and you have a lot of experiences to help other folks out with and draw from and utilize that for the betterment of the people that surround you.
Speaker 1:Well, that's great, chris. I love the optimistic not even the optimistic, but the realistic message of retirement. This can be incredibly fulfilling, incredibly rewarding. It does take acceptance of the unknown and an adventurous spirit to be okay with that, but love to know that the first 14 months have gone great and thank you so much for joining me today to share this message with the audience. Thank you, it's been my pleasure.
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Speaker 1:Nothing in this podcast should be construed as investment, tax, legal or other financial advice. It is for informational purposes only. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Ready for Retirement podcast. If you want to see how Root Financial can help you implement the techniques I discussed in this podcast, then go to rootfinancialpartnerscom and click start here, where you can schedule a call with one of our advisors. We work with clients all over the country and we love the opportunity to speak with you about your goals and how we might be able to help. And please remember, nothing we discuss in this podcast is intended to serve as advice. You should always consult a financial, legal or tax professional who's familiar with your unique circumstances before making any financial decisions.
